Page 90 of Worth the Trouble

I distract myself from my trailing thoughts by reaching for a bag of fruit. I grab a piece of cantaloupe and can’t help but feed it to her. She hesitates for only a moment before wrapping her lips around my fingers to take it.

Fuck, she’s hot.

But more than that, I love feeding her. Caring for her. Giving her things she’s been deprived of. I want her to have it all.

“I didn’t take you for a man of nature,” she says, swallowing her bite and leaning back on her hands to look up at the sky.

“Probably because I’m not.” I pop a grape in my mouth. “Noah told me about this place. Apparently, him and Merry come out here sometimes. Sounded like something you’d like.”

“Me?”

I nod, and it seems to catch her off guard because her face pinches in confusion.

“That’s really sweet of you.” She sounds almost sad about it.

I’m not sure anyone has called me sweet before. I don’t do things because other people will enjoy them. I please myself, first and foremost. Lili breaks all my rules.

“Come here.” I lay down and stretch my arm out.

She lays down beside me and curls into the crook of my arm. She feels like she belongs there as we look up at the bright blue sky. There are only a few clouds, slowly changing shape as we stare at them.

“Elephant,” Lili says, pointing up to a cloud with a long swivel sticking out the side of it.

I tilt my head slightly. “If you say so.”

“I do.” She laughs. “Besides, elephants are good luck, so maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Are they?” I brush her arm with my fingertips and feel her shiver through her sweater. The sweetest little shake that runs all the way through her.

“They are. An elephant is a symbol of good things because they stop all bad from passing them.” She lets out a heavy sigh, and I wonder if it’s because we both know an elephant in the sky isn’t enough to stop the bad things coming to both of us.

The wind agrees, slowly changing the elephant’s shape, erasing the hope of anything but pain.

I watch the cloud change. The trunk breaking off, the back arching further, the lines of it thinning out. And I swear I see it become a black cat in front of me, crossing my path in warning.

Lili rolls to her side and props her head up with her hand. “Do you think it’s good luck or bad luck that I met you?”

“Depends how you look at it, I guess.”

“How do you look at it?”

She’s always throwing my own questions back at me, and I love how she’s curious about the things most people don’t give a shit about when it comes to me.

“Well…” I grab her hips and pull her up and on top of me so she’s straddling my hips.

She tips her head back and laughs so loud it spreads out in the air around us. But like her, there’s no chasing it, and I have to accept the silence as it vanishes.

“I don’t look at me meeting you as luck, since I don’t believe in it.” I brush a strand of her hair away from her face. “There’s no such thing as cosmic fate or chance. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things. Sometimes coincidences. But it’s not a higher power pulling strings. It just is.”

“I can’t decide if that’s realistic or depressing.” She frowns.

“Both, probably.” I rub my hands up and down her thighs. “I’m glad you ran into me though.”

She smirks and shakes her head. “Literally.”

“Literally,” I repeat, and she does a cute little eye roll at me mocking her. “You reminded me I’d lost it.”

She leans in, folding her arms and propping herself on my chest so we’re almost nose to nose. “What had you lost, Rome Moreno?”

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